When you look out to sea, the horizon (or skyline) seems curved. This is because our planet is shaped like a ball; it measures about 13,000 km across. The land and water that you see are only a small part of the Earth’s surface. Seen from space, Earth is almost perfectly round and appears to have a smooth surface. The highest mountain is 9 km high, and the deepest ocean is about 11 km deep. These distances are very small compared to the size of the Earth.
The Earth is one of many planets in our solar system. But it is the only planet which has the right conditions for human life. Other planets are too cold or too hot for us to live there, or their atmospheres are too poisonous.
Our planet Earth is made up of the atmosphere the land and the oceans.
